Worried about lack of evidence-(CEL) County Court

akhan42

Hi all,

I have been issue with a claim form from Civil Enforcement Limited.

I have read through the guidance and there is a template available to use as a defence. This is really helpful in proving that they have not followed relevant pre action protocols and have not issued a proper POC.

My concern is the lack of evidence I have. To summarise. My ticket was issued anpr staying that payment was not made in accordance with signage. I have no evidence of the ticket being bought (although I am adamant I paid) and I don't have any photos of the signs (ticket was issued over two years ago).

I feel as if I would struggle to compose a witness statement/evidence based on my lack of evidence. I don't know if it would be sufficient just to support the points in my defence in the witness statement with no evidence.

The other question I have is will the onus be on the claimant to produce photographic evidence to prove that I did not have a ticket/valid ticket? As I am confident that I paid I am interested to see what their photos show if anything.

Reading the letter i received it says 'payment not made in accordance with signage' which suggests I paid but the wrong tariff?

I believe the i received the ticket after 14 days, i have read that there is a rule that the ticket must be served within that period otherwise it is invalid. Is that true and will they have to prove it was served within the given period? I don't have any paperwork to support that claim either.

Finally, what is the monetary risk I take should I decide to defend this? Amount is already at 350- how much higher can it go if I lose on the day?

Many thanks for reading and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Umkomaas

The onus is always on the claimant to prove their case. It’s always helpful to have your own evidence, but if you haven’t, there’s not much you can do about that, but it’s far from fatal.

There have been dozens of CEL small claims over the past 3-4 months and they are littered across the forum, all at different stages of evolution, so do some searches on those. Our advice to each is the same, so sorry if we don’t, yet again, type the same stuff - forum regulars (fewer in number than fingers on your hands) are drowning under the deluge.

Safe to say, in CEL cases, if you follow the process, keep to the time schedule, robustly defend (use strong copies of other CEL defences, suitably adjusted to your case, to plagiarise) and CEL should follow their normal pattern of discontinuing further on in the process. But they will pile the pressure on by taking this almost right up to the wire.

The NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #2 will be your ‘go-to’ resource from here on, to guide you expertly through the entire court process. Please read it thoroughly and refer back to it when each new stage presents itself.

Coupon-mad

Same as all the other CEL cases, copy/adapt one, there are so many. All won here thus far (no hearings, CEL later give up).

Please (after defending this) no post asking next what to do when you get the DQ N180 form; the sticky thread covers it.